We’re Clever Girls

This Week in Misogyny: It Just Keeps Coming

There’s never an end in sight when it comes to finding misogyny in the news. People are literally getting away with murder, telling high school girls that they ought to focus more on being moms than getting jobs, making it harder for women to get healthcare, and just generally being terrible human beings. (As usual, trigger warnings apply for just about everything).

A Texas man has been acquitted of murder, even though he admitted shooting a woman in the neck. He had paid her $150 for escort services, and when he learned that this didn’t include sex, he demanded his money back and then shot her. Apparently, the jury decided that he was justified under a state law that allows deadly force to recover stolen property during a nighttime theft (which was intended to cover things like shooting people who were mugging you or breaking into your house, not misunderstanding that an escort is not a prostitute).

A 20-year-old Maine man has been arrested in the kidnapping and murder of a 15-year-old girl with whom he was obsessed. She had rejected his advances, so he set up a fake Facebook account impersonating one of her friends, lured her out of her house, then jumped her, duct-taped her mouth, and threw her in the back of his dad’s truck, where she apparently suffocated. He had hoped to win her affection by later “rescuing” her.

Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) thinks the armed forces are seeing an epidemic of sexual assault and rape because young men are at the mercy of their hormones. Boys will be boys! Fortunately, even other Republicans are calling bullshit on that.

Why is the American education system falling behind compared to other nations? Working moms, if you ask Mississippi governor Phil Bryant.

Remember the all-male congressional sub-committee that was holding hearings on a national ban on abortions at 20 weeks? They approved the bill (by a 6-4 party line vote) and it will now go to the House floor, despite the fact that it’s likely unconstitutional and based on unproven claims that fetuses can feel pain after 20 weeks gestational age.

Lindy West tried to educate people about rape culture and why rape jokes aren’t funny. Now she’s getting bombarded with rape threats. It’s disgusting and sadly predictable, since people are fucking terrible.

Teen boys are throwing sandwiches at Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard. Because duh, she’s a feminist lady in a position of power and she really ought to be in the kitchen making sammiches.

Michelle Obama was heckled during a fundraising speech, and now she’s getting shit for confronting the woman. It’s “Angry Black Woman” bullshit.

Forty percent of American households may have a female breadwinner, which sounds like a great leap forward for feminism, but unfortunately, most of them aren’t middle class women who out-earn their husbands (though the ones who do fit that profile are still burdened with most of the housework and are more likely to suffer from marital strife). Two-thirds are actually single moms with an average yearly income of $23,000, and they’re much more likely to be young black or Latina women without college degrees.

Though it was against her school’s dress code for the graduation ceremony, an Alabama teen wore a feather on her cap to celebrate her Native American heritage. Now she’s being fined $1000 and was denied her high school diploma.

Damnit, journalism. Not only is it annoying that so many profiles of high-ranking women discuss their shoe preferences and handbag collection, a new study found that mentioning hypothetical female candidates’ clothing makes people think of them as less qualified than male candidates with similar backgrounds. Also, sometimes female politicians will have aides carry their purses, just men (and women) will sometimes have aides carry briefcases. Stop calling them “purse boys” as if it’s somehow demeaning.

Ladies, we’ve got to stop blaming ourselves for the male gaze. If you want to wear a bikini, do it! And I absolutely disagree with the author’s assertion that “as girls, exercise is important to us” and her analogy comparing women resisting chocolate cake to men resisting lustful thoughts about women’s bodies. Bitch, send that cake to me. You can keep those pearls you’re so desperately clutching.

Swiffer briefly advertised their new Bissel Steam Boost mop using an image based off of Rosie the Riveter. WE CAN DO IT, if by “it” you mean housework. The campaign was quickly pulled because it unsurprisingly pissed people off.

40-something Hollywood actresses are actually doing quite well right now, as many of them have broken out of rom-com typecasting in favor of taking meatier (and better-paying) roles. Many popular teen actresses are following in their footsteps by taking on roles with more substance than used to be common.

Michael Douglas’s statement that performing oral sex caused his throat cancer actually isn’t misogyny. It’s science. The same strains of HPV that cause cervical cancer have been linked to oral cancers, which is partly why the CDC is now advising that boys get vaccinated as well as girls.

I fucking love this escalator analogy to explain male privilege in the tech field (though it applies to many other situations as well).

An update to LizBR’s story from earlier in the week about the page for Kolkata’s Sonagachi red light district that Facebook initially declined to remove despite its photos of underage prostitutes and graphic sex acts – it’s down now. It’s ridiculous that it had to be escalated so far to get them to take action, especially since they just announced a policy change to address violence against women, but at least it worked.

Finally, Beatriz had a successful C-section in El Salvador on Tuesday and is now recovering. While she wasn’t permitted to have an abortion, this procedure was allowed because the child was given fluids and placed in an incubator before dying five hours after birth.

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[E] Hillary

Hillary is a giant nerd and former Mathlete. She once read large swaths of "Why Evolution is True" and a geology book aloud to her infant daughter, in the hopes of a) instilling a love of science in her from a very young age and b) boring her to sleep. After escaping the wilds of Waco, Texas and spending the next decade in NYC, she currently lives in upstate New York, where she misses being able to get decent pizza and Chinese takeout delivered to her house. She lost on Jeopardy.
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10 thoughts on “This Week in Misogyny: It Just Keeps Coming”

The bikini story angers me to no end. My parents waver back and forth on this concept of dressing modestly – I’m somehow allowed to wear a bikini, but last year when I was practicing driver’s ed, I was forced to change into jeans and an oversized T-shirt (from school-approved shorts and a T-shirt) in summer because I would be alone, practicing driving with a male instructor. I nearly blew a gasket but they wouldn’t let it go. I’m already a “modest” dresser as it is, just because of what I’m comfortable in, but sometimes they get pretty psycho. I hate the stupid idea of dressing modestly to help guys be in control of their thoughts, or urges, or whatever else they care about. I’m not responsible for the whole male populace’s thoughts and potential moral fiber. That’s THEIR responsibility, and you know what? If that’s what they want to think about, I’m really not that likely to find out otherwise.

Sheesh. Ahem. Sorry for the rant. Thank you for the good news too! I saw that, and loved it.

In college there was a big debate over whether girls should be allowed to jog on the trail around campus while wearing only sports bras, because it made the boys have impure thoughts. I was pleasantly surprised that quite a few people came out to say, “It’s 100 freaking degrees outside, NO, we will not put on an extra layer!”

” I absolutely disagree with the author’s assertion that â€œas girls, exercise is important to usâ€ and her analogy comparing women resisting chocolate cake to men resisting lustful thoughts about women’s bodies. Bitch, send that cake to me. You can keep those pearls you’re so desperately clutching.”

Lets be friends, yes?

Also, I just can’t deal with the El Salvador saga. I mean, what the lovely motherfuck?! You want that baby to live so badly so it can suffer for five hours before succumbing to a FATAL CONDITION?!